"A Wink and a Smile"

This weekend is our first swim meet of this short course and in a few minutes I will be helping the girls to pack up and prepare for it. In a few short weeks {k} will be turning 11 and moving up to the next age bracket ... she is not excited about it one bit. She does have two more meets as a 10 year old and we keep trying to fill her mind with some positive reasons why moving up will be a good thing. This is also the very first short course meet for our 6 year old. She is only swimming one event (25Y free), but I am excited to see it. {e} and {m} will also be swimming. SO this weekend is definitely a family event for us. I've realized over the last 2 months how emotional I have been. My family ... we are busy people (like so many others) and we like to change things up a lot which puts a good amount of stress on me. I know that I have had my mix of good and bad days. Sometimes it is evident in the words you see on my blog. I want to keep things real, but then I don't want to ...

Just not digging this method.  I don't really want to listen to celebrities telling me what to do ... or who to vote for.  It bothers me A LOT that new (or old) voters might not really educate themselves about the issues, but instead vote as the celebrities do.  Hmmmmmm ...  I know that we all have a voice and have the right to express it, but obviously the voice of a celebrity is heard more, and by more people.  NOT COOL (in my opinion).  Plus I find it a bit condescending.   When did celebrities voice become so valued in politics?  Some may say which celebrities? The Hollywood ones or the Washington ones?  The two seem to have merged ... ughhhhhh! *Turn off my music to listen  ... if you even want to;)

Have I been asked "How are you today?" ... 5x in 12 minutes (while shopping at the grocery store). "Good, and you?" BIG FAT LIE each and every time.  A record 5 lies in a short amount of time. I AM NOT FINE I JUST SPENT my morning ... in the dentist office ... drilling away at a cavity (one that apparently showed up on x-ray 4 months ago, but nobody seemed to inform me of that at the dentist ... cracked tooth resulted) at the orthodontist putting on a new bracket and wire after I needed to have them taken off yesterday (after my cracked tooth discovery) I am NOT happy ... I AM GRUMPY . (((SIGH)))) Today I have had a bad attitude and I lied to 5 different people.  It's like someone put those friendly happy people in my pathway on purpose.  Although I must admit that with each little lie I felt less annoyed by the question being asked.  Even though my morning was quite "stinky", it may have been nothing compared to some.  Any one of those friendly worke...

I haven't really said too much about PRE ... otherwise known as Parish Religious Education.  I've been teaching for 5 weeks now and so far I've been pretty happy with the way it is going.  The biggest challenge is that my class of 13 never is consistently present.  About 5 of the children have been at every class (and on time), while all the other students have missed 3-4 classes.   It makes me a little sad to think that the parents don't really put their children's spiritual education "up there".  I do think that a few of the children come from broken homes where they alternate weekends with a parent.  In this case I try to encourage them to let me know that they won't be around and can work on the lesson at home.  UNFORTUNATELY no one has really taken me up on this well spoken of suggestion.  I am trying to get everyone's email address so that I don't have to rely on getting a handout to parents ... one that may never be seen. Last year was t...